“Those guys who have been feeling the hurt and the pain of being left out of the T20 World Cup squad have been getting quite a bit of love from the guys.” – Aiden Markram
Telford Vice | Cape Town
IS disappointment able to leap tall buildings, cross an ocean, traverse time zones, and hurdle a hemisphere? The first T20I at the Premadasa on Friday was a chance to probe an issue that loomed in the shadow of Thursday’s unveiling of a South Africa squad for the T20 World Cup that only its selectors could love.
Unsurprisingly, the visitors’ entire XI was drawn from the squad. How would they respond to the wails from home about the omission of Faf du Plessis and George Linde, and the odd idea that seaming allrounders were preferable to their spinning counterparts on the slow pitches of the UAE and Oman? Would the disappointment reach them and undermine their efforts?
You could have carved those questions into Colombo’s muggy monsoon air. They remained unanswered as the South Africans found their way, thanks largely to a stand of 65 off 35 balls by Aiden Markram and David Miller, to 163/5. Only two of the first 14 overs yielded 10 or more runs. Only one of the last six did not. South Africa’s total was slightly better than average for this ground, but teams that had put up bigger scores had lost seven times in the previous 39 T20Is played there.
So there was work to be done to turn back the tide of unhappiness that had rolled biliously all the way from Africa to lap at Sri Lanka’s shores. And, to their credit, the South Africans did it by strangling the Lankans’ reply to 135/6. It’s only one win and it comes in the wake of a shambolic batting performance in the deciding ODI at the same venue on Tuesday. But the circumstances made this success more significant than most isolated victories.
Lost in the angry noise from South Africa are thoughts for feelings of Beuran Hendricks, Andile Phehlukwayo, Lizaad Williams and Sisanda Magala, who also did not crack the nod for the T20 World Cup but are cheek by jowl with those who did and will be for the rest of South Africa’s time in Sri Lanka.
“It’s never a nice thing to be on the receiving end of bad news with regards to selection for a World Cup,” Markram told an online press conference. “Those guys who have been feeling the hurt and the pain have been getting quite a bit of love from the guys, who are trying to take care of them and support them. They still appreciate the value that they have in the squad as a whole going to a World Cup.
“In our environment we’ve been brilliant at that. Squads are a lot bigger in Covid times, and taking care of players who aren’t playing but are on the tour and away from home is as important as winning games.”
Quinton de Kock, back from his break for the ODI series and no stranger to the ills of bubble life, set the mood in the field on Friday with frequent yells of “Ai-yoh!” — seemingly the exclamation of choice of Asian wicketkeepers, particularly of the Lankan variety, whenever they are near a live stump microphone and the ball is not unquestionably middled.
Keshav Maharaj embellished the positive narrative when he trapped Bhanuka Rajapaksa in front to become only the second man to take a wicket with his first ball at this level in the format while also serving as captain. The only other player to tick all those boxes is Paras Khadka, who did so in Nepal’s inaugural T20I against Hong Kong in Chattogram in the 2014 World T20.
Bjorn Fortuin answered critics of his selection for next month’s tournament by taking the new ball and with it 1/24. Only Maharaj, who claimed 1/19, was more economical on Friday. What those critics don’t get or don’t want to get is that Fortuin hasn’t been given Linde’s place in the squad. Closer to the truth is that one of those seaming allrounders — Wiaan Mulder or Dwaine Pretorius — has kept Linde out. Let’s not forget that Fortuin is brown, and thus a target for racist reaction to whatever he does and does not do.
As they did in the third ODI, South Africa deployed three spinners, who bowled 13 of the 20 overs. Unlike on Tuesday, none of the slow poisoners was Markram, still officially a part-timer with the ball. So spoilt was Maharaj for choice that Kagiso Rabada and Tabraiz Shamsi — the top-ranked bowler in the format — did not complete their overs.
Less edifying for the visitors was the fact that they put down five catches. In mitigation, not one of them was straightforward and some veered towards the impossible.
Sri Lanka will look on Friday’s game as a failure to capitalise on the pressure they put on their opponents in the first half of their innings. But Dinesh Chandimal will be quietly satisfied. Having been overlooked for series against Bangladesh, England and India this year, it seemed his white-ball career had run its course. Perish the thought. Not only did he win selection to the T20 World Cup squad, he celebrated by scoring a career-best 66 not out off 54 balls.
Maybe disappointment can’t be exported, but no boundary is secure enough to stop the spread of happiness.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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